Quote:
Originally Posted by markwilliamson2001
I agree with your comments about groups of racers Terry, this is exactly what is happening. I dont like shouting at people to get involved, its not my style, but the 'take no s**t' attitude of John Robson at stafford always works!!
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I'm not one to shout either, but you only have to do it one or two times to embarrass the lazy ones who think they are more important than the helpers into getting their hands out of their pockets. We have one racer who comes semi regularly and never used to set out the track, he got the hint when he sat down, prepped his tyres, put battery on charge, then looked round and realised he was sitting on his own in the pits. Not surprisingly he now joins in.
If racing starts late so you either have to run less rounds or finish late, then so be it, it will only happen once. They rely on the fact that you will give in before they do and if you don't put the responsibility of setting out the track onto them they will keep on standing by and letting others get on with it.
An idea to break up the little cliques that are at most clubs is a variation on team racing, a normal endurance will have everyone racing with their own little group of mates. We also tried sorting endurance teams by splitting up the drivers so there's a spread of abilities in each team, but the fast drivers tend to hog the track to win leaving the beginners to wait on the sidelines.
I placed the drivers in heats as normal based on ability, so everyone raced against similar skilled drivers, then all drivers with number 1 were team 1, number 2 is team 2, etc. so every driver had their own race as normal, but the total laps for each number was added together to the teams total lap score. The idea is to encourage the top drivers to help out other drivers of the same number to improve by giving them driving tips and help setting up their cars instead of just hanging out with their mates.
Cheap plastic trophies for the winners will be greatly appreciated, they don't need to be anything special. The only downside to it that you need to have exactly the same number of drivers in each heat, so needs a bit of forward planning to get the numbers right or have the extra drivers opt out of teams.